Spousal maintenance is one of those subjects where everybody has an opinion and almost nobody has the facts. In the same week I can meet one person who is sure they will be paying half their salary for life, and another who is sure they will get nothing because of a piece of paper they signed before the wedding. Listen, listen. Neither is usually right. This week a famous American divorce put the question in the headlines, so let's use it, calmly, to explain how it really works here.

As always, we only use what has been publicly reported. We don't speculate about anyone's private life or their reasons, and we don't discuss their family beyond the basic facts in the papers.

What has been reported

ABC News reported that the actress Lori Loughlin filed for divorce from the designer Mossimo Giannulli in Los Angeles Superior Court on 4 September 2026, citing irreconcilable differences. According to the filing, they married in November 1997 and separated at the end of August 2025, a marriage of nearly 28 years. She asked for their property and debts to be divided under a premarital agreement signed in October 1997 and amended in 2015, and for spousal support to be reserved for a future decision.

On 16 October it was reported that his response, filed in the same court, asks the judge to decide whether spousal support should be payable to either party, and whether one should contribute to the other's legal fees. As the report put it, the filing does not establish that either spouse will receive support. It simply leaves the question open.

That is the interesting part for us. A long marriage, a prenup, and two people asking the court to decide maintenance later. Every one of those has a direct equivalent in England and Wales.

What is spousal maintenance in England and Wales?

Spousal maintenance is the everyday name for a periodical payments order: an order that one spouse pays the other a regular sum, usually monthly, towards their living costs. The court's power to make it comes from section 23 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, and the same rules apply to civil partners.

GOV.UK puts it simply: the court may order the person with the higher income to make regular payments to help with the other person's living costs. The payments can be for a limited period, or until one of you dies, marries or enters a new civil partnership, and the amount can change if, for example, one of you loses your job or gets much better paid work.

Three things it is not:

• It is not child maintenance. Money for children is a separate question, usually arranged between parents or through the Child Maintenance Service.
• It is not automatic. Nobody is entitled to a set percentage. It depends on needs and resources.
• It is not available between unmarried partners under the current law, however long they lived together. That is one of the things the government is consulting on changing (more below).

How does the court decide who pays and how much?

There is no calculator. Section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973 tells the judge to look at all the circumstances, giving first consideration to the welfare of any child of the family under 18, and in particular at:

1. Each person's income, earning capacity, property and other resources, now and in the foreseeable future, including any earning capacity it would be reasonable to expect someone to build up
2. Each person's financial needs, obligations and responsibilities
3. The standard of living the family enjoyed before the marriage broke down
4. Each person's age and the length of the marriage
5. Any physical or mental disability
6. The contributions each has made to the welfare of the family, including looking after the home or caring for the family
7. Conduct, but only where it would be inequitable to ignore it
8. Anything either person loses because of the divorce, such as pension benefits

In real life, maintenance is mostly about needs. If one person cannot meet reasonable living costs from their own income and their share of the capital, and the other can afford to help, maintenance is on the table. If the capital split already meets both people's needs, it often is not.

How long does spousal maintenance last?

This is the question I am asked most. The honest answer: it depends, but the law leans towards an end date.

The court must consider a clean break

Under section 25A, the court has a duty to consider whether the financial ties between you can be ended as soon as is just and reasonable. If it does order maintenance, it must consider whether payments should last only long enough for the person receiving them to adjust without undue hardship. We explain clean breaks fully in what is a clean break order?

Term orders and joint lives orders

• A term order runs for a fixed period, for example until the youngest child finishes school, or for long enough to retrain. The court can also direct that the term cannot be extended later (section 28(1A)).
• A joint lives order runs until one of you dies or the receiving person remarries, unless the court changes it. The government's own 2026 consultation says research shows these, and long term orders, are now very rare.

When it ends automatically

Under section 28, a maintenance order made on divorce ends on the death of either of you, or when the person receiving it remarries or forms a civil partnership. Moving in with a new partner does not end it automatically, but it can be a reason to ask the court to look again.

Changing it later

Section 31 lets either of you apply to vary, suspend or end a maintenance order if circumstances change: redundancy, illness, retirement, a big pay rise. The court can also wipe out some or all of any arrears. Until a new order is made, the old one still stands, so keep paying and apply properly rather than simply stopping.

The headline, translated into British court language

We translated custody language and parenting plans in our earlier piece, celebrity divorce, the British way.

Does a prenup stop spousal maintenance?

Not on its own. In England and Wales a prenuptial agreement is not a binding contract that the court must follow. But since the Supreme Court's decision in Radmacher v Granatino in October 2010, the court should give effect to a nuptial agreement that was freely entered into by each person with a full appreciation of its implications, unless in the circumstances it would not be fair to hold them to it.

In practice, a judge will ask things like: did each of you understand what you were signing, was there pressure or a deadline right before the wedding, did you each know the other's finances, and does the agreement still leave both of you, and especially any children, with your needs met? An agreement that leaves one person unable to house themselves after a long marriage is far less likely to be followed in full.

Money while the case is going on

Financial cases can take months. Two powers help bridge the gap.

• Maintenance pending suit. Under section 22, once a divorce application is made the court can order interim payments until the case is decided. This cannot include money for legal fees.
• Legal services payment orders. Under section 22ZA, the court can order one spouse to pay the other an amount so they can get legal help. It can only do this if, without it, the person could not reasonably get appropriate legal services, cannot reasonably get a loan, and is unlikely to get help by offering a charge over what they may receive.

How to ask for spousal maintenance, step by step

Most maintenance arrangements are agreed. If you cannot agree, the court decides. The GOV.UK route, in plain English:

1. Try to agree firstShare your finances honestly and talk, directly, through mediation or with help. If you agree, the terms go into a consent order, sent to the court with form D81 for a judge to approve.
2. Attend a mediation information meetingYou generally must attend a MIAM before applying to court, unless an exemption applies, for example where there is domestic abuse.
3. Apply on form AForm A starts the financial order application. It is usually simpler to apply after the conditional order and before the final order. There is a court fee: check the current amount on GOV.UK and whether you qualify for Help with Fees.
4. Complete form EBoth of you fill in a financial statement listing income, property, debts, pensions and an estimate of your future living costs. This is where your honest budget goes.
5. First appointmentGOV.UK says this short hearing is usually 12 to 14 weeks after you apply. The judge sorts out what further information and valuations are needed.
6. Financial dispute resolution (FDR)A hearing designed to help you agree, where a judge gives an indication of what they think. Many cases settle here.
7. Final hearingOnly if you still cannot agree. A judge decides, applying the section 25 factors.

Is spousal maintenance about to change? The 2026 consultation

In June 2026 the Ministry of Justice published A fairer end to relationships, a consultation on reforming the law on money after divorce and on new protections for cohabiting couples. It ran from 5 June to 14 August 2026. As we write, the government has not published its response, and nothing in it is law yet. Any legislation will come, in the government's words, when parliamentary time allows. Here is what it says that matters for maintenance:

• No new limits on spousal maintenance after divorce. The government says it has concluded reform is not needed here, because joint lives and long term orders are already very rare.
• The principles written into law. It proposes putting the court's existing approach of sharing and needs into the statute, with children's welfare considered first.
• Binding prenups, with safeguards. It proposes qualifying nuptial agreements made by deed, not signed in the 28 days before the wedding, with financial disclosure and independent legal advice for each person. They could not be used to contract out of meeting each other's needs.
• Economic abuse. It asks whether courts should give more weight to domestic abuse, including coercive control and economic abuse, when deciding money. If any of this touches your situation, please read our Keeping You Safe page, and in an emergency call 999.
• Cohabitants. A new, narrower scheme for couples who have lived together for at least three years or have a child together, where maintenance would only be for exceptional circumstances and for a limited time.

Five lessons for ordinary families

1. Divorce does not settle maintenance. Only a financial order, agreed or decided, does.
2. Needs drive it. Start with an honest budget for both households.
3. Expect an end date. Most orders are now for a term, with a clean break in view.
4. A prenup matters, but it is not the last word. Fairness and needs still count.
5. Keep the children separate. Child maintenance and time with the children are different conversations from spousal maintenance. Never trade one for another.

If you are dealing with this without a solicitor, our checklist for representing yourself in family court will help you get organised, and you can read what a McKenzie Friend can and can't do if you would like someone calm beside you.